Ico: Voices
by PeterEliot
Summary: The tale of Ico, a twelve-year-old horned boy who is born to a destiny greater than his understanding.
1. I Am Taken Away, for the Second Time

ICO: VOICES

By PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com)

At last Ico has a category of its own on Fanfiction.net!  I am rather excited to be the first contributor to the new category.  Enjoy the story, then.  Chapter II will be posted within a week or so.  –PeterEliot 

FOREWORD

            First thing first: _Ico_ for Playsation 2 and all its legal rights belong to Sony Computer Entertainments America.  No profit is made from this publication.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, the following is a retelling of the game _Ico, which I believe to be the most beautiful and magnificent story yet presented through the medium of videogame.  Now this endorsement may ring shallow.  Being a devotee to only a small repertoire of favorite titles, I make no claim of authority in videogames.  Let it suffice, however, that __Ico is an enchanting experience, breathtaking in beauty and rich in emotional reward.  This tale is my tribute to that experience._

If you have not played the game, do yourself a favor and not read this.  Go play the game first.  You can rent it and finish it in two days, although, if you are at all like me, you will probably want it added to your permanent collection.  Once you have completed the game, do come back and read my story as a companion piece.  On another note, if you have no idea of what _Ico_ is about, you might want to check out the first chapter and see if the game sounds interesting to you.  The first chapter covers a prologue not shown in the game—the whole thing is pretty much my own contrivance, and even the spoilers aren't anything you won't learn from the intro sequence.

Which brings me to my next point: the story will include plenty of things you did not and will not see in the game.  Perhaps my aim is not so much to novelize the game but to _verbalize_ it.  There is very little dialogue and even less explanation in _Ico_.  The game is an overwhelmingly visual experience, something to be seen before understood.  Unfortunately I only have written words at my disposal to engage your interest, and where the game lacks suitable materials for a written tale I must invent them.  (Besides, it's more fun for me that way.)  Oh, and it hardly needs to be said, but I will appreciate your reviews immensely.  I write this story for my own satisfaction, but I post it for your reviews.

The story is presented through the eyes and the mouth of the hero, Ico.  You will notice that his narrative voice is not that of a twelve-year-old boy.  As to how old Ico is now and what might have passed since his adventure to effect this change in him, I will leave to your imagination.  

ICO: VOICES

By PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com)

Chapter I.  I am taken away, for the second time. 

            I should start at the beginning.  The beginning, that is, of the longest three days of my life.  Or perhaps I should just say the beginning of my life, what I know of it, for all of my existence before then seemed to distill to the murky revelations of those threescore hours.  And all that came after had necessarily to bear their mark.  I carry that mark still.

Certainly there is not very much I know about my beginning.  I know that I have answered to the rude name of Ico as far back as memory stretches.  I never learned my true surname.  It may very well be that I didn't have one to learn of, had my parents been some obscure peasants.  But I could not verify this, because it was never imparted to me who my parents were, either.  To those who ask how anyone could be so appallingly ignorant of his own origins, I will reply that I was an orphan from the womb.  An impossible claim this must seem, I know.  But it is the truth; while some children become orphans by circumstances, I was destined as one.  My father and mother might have abandoned me in relief—or they might have had to be threatened, perhaps forced, to surrender their child, who might have been their only one, or merely the newest in a string of dependents.  Whichever the case, I was separated from them at an exceedingly early age, and entrusted to an old friar who lived at the edge of a mountainside village, the only human settlement I knew until the age of twelve.  There I grew up without the remembrance of my kin's faces or the knowledge of where and whether they lived.

All this because of the horns, you understand.  At first, I was told, they were little more than a pair of small bumps above my temples.  But they were unmistakable even then.  Before my second year was over, the damning buds were poking prominently through my locks.  Before long, their tips needed to be filed down periodically lest I should cause inadvertent injuries.  By the time I was twelve and the horsemen came, the horns had achieved a menacing span that easily doubled the breadth of my skull, and that was only because they moderated themselves by arcing upwards at midpoints, like bullhorns.

I wonder now what the townsfolk thought of them.  I wonder what they _really_ thought whenever they saw me and could not help but be conscious of the horns, as if they had not already seen them there many, many times before.  For I tell you that was the impression they so often gave me.  In the middle of a talk or a meal or a mass or whatever occasion where I was in their company, they would momentarily stop, with no foreseeable cause, and send a wary glance in the direction of my head as though they were caught unawares by something about me that they hadn't quite noticed before.  And then I was bound to detect a change in them, a change too subtle to define but discernible regardless; a change in their intonation, or in their mannerism, or in the set of their mouths or the pattern of wrinkles between their brows.  And I would be reminded once again how this hometown of mine was a provisional home and would forever remain provisional though I had lived in it all my life—and how in all likelihood it would not have made a bit of difference for me if it had _been_ my true home place.

I mustn't leave it to be supposed that I was shunned completely, or that I suffered deliberate persecution.  By and large the grown-ups showed me an uneasy and distant sort of civility during my residence at the village.  There were times when I thought I sensed a note of grim sympathy in their demeanor.  As to the children of my own age, they were a jolly and thoughtless lot, just as I was.  The villagers frowned on their children's associating closely with the curse-child, but the youngsters tended to be heedless of the admonitions and played with me when it pleased them.  That's not to say that the horns never occasioned childish quarrels from time to time.  They did, and I generally had to put up with some beatings.  Afterwards I would seethe and cry in the friar's hut next to the shrine we cared for, cursing the world, and all the while wondering why I had no mother to comfort me in misery like the other children's did.  And then, after a couple of days, I would find myself chasing squirrels with the same brood, oblivious as they were of the brief spite.

That was early in my childhood.  Once I was ten years or so of age, the number of willing playmates declined steadily as the horns, along with my height, grew faster than ever before.  What would I have done at that time for a peer!  A _true_ peer, that is.  Another one like myself.  But there only existed one horned child in a generation, if any existed at all.  Or so the old friar told me.  The friar told me a great many things over the years.  But sometimes it seemed to me there were equally as much, if not more, that he didn't care to have me know.  In retrospect, he must have had mixed feelings about his long-time charge.  His devout heart could never quite forgive me for the baleful peculiarities on my head, whose power to unnerve him did not diminish over time since they kept growing larger each year.  All the same, his was a gentle and compassionate disposition, and he remained a loyal if somewhat aloof guardian to me.  He probably half suspected that I was doomed to serve the devil, who saw it fit to display his sign so patently on me.  As countermeasures he made sure, among others, that I learned the Holy Scripture, knew how to read and to write, and participated in the daily routine of the shrine, all in hope of winning me back to the godly path.  This last of the measures he accomplished by appointing me to carry out various chores in the shrine's maintenance.  For six years I cleaned the shrine, gathered firewood, and washed the dishes and the clothes.  All save for cooking.  I didn't cook.  The friar could not endure my culinary efforts, and so assumed that burden himself.

But to get back to that day, the day that began it all—the day that ended many things and started as many.  The season was early June, and the sun was beginning to take on the summer heat.  It was quite early in the morning when the horsemen arrived at the shrine.  The friar and I were already up lighting the morning candles, and as usual it was I who welcomed the visitors.  At first I thought they were all strangers.  Then I saw that the head of the village, a mild-mannered man in his fifties who also acted as the town magistrate, was with them.  His thin form seemed so slight as to look almost immaterial in the company of the other four men, who were in armors and looked very imposing.  I had to strive to keep my eyes from straying to the armored figures while exchanging greetings with the magistrate.

            "Father Micael has risen, I take it?" he said.

            This was the name of my guardian.  "He has, sir," I said.

            "Go and tell him that I am here with guests, will you, child?"

            I said I would, and ran into the shrine to find the friar already in his morning meditation.  I informed him of the visitors outside.  He appeared displeased at having the prayer interrupted.

            "It is an hour yet until morning devotion," he said, frowning.

            "I don't think they are here for that, father," I said.

            He rose to step outside, and I followed him.  The men waited in front of the hut, still on horseback.  The magistrate smiled in salutation, dismounting.

            "A pleasant morning, father.  Are you well?"

            "I am, Lord be thanked.  You pay us an unexpected visit this morning."

            "These warriors wished to be conducted to you."

            I observed the strangers while the elders talked.  I could not make out anyone's face, for it was hidden inside iron covering like the rest of his body.  This was a disconcerting fact, since I could not tell whether any of them were staring at me, which people invariably did when they saw me for the first time.  But they could be no more riveted by my sight than I was by theirs.  The knights seemed to have sprung out of the very books in Father Micael's library—books he rarely allowed me to peruse because he believed they planted ungainly fancies in my head.  Here were those fancies come to life and bestriding steeds before me.  The men betrayed no suggestion of the weight they bore, and the chain-mail that enclosed their muscular frames chinked gently when the horses moved.  That they had traveled some distance was plain from the assortment of bags and satchels that hung on the beasts' sides.

            "Pray send the child inside, father," a voice said.  I looked up, startled, at the warrior in a gray cloak who had spoken.  Unlike the others he wore a dark battle mask over his helmet.  Even while seated atop the horse, his great stature was so evident that I thought if he stepped down, his height should suffer but little. 

            I turned to my guardian to see if the stranger's request pleased him.  He nodded.  "Go light the rest of the incenses, Ico," he said.

I made a bow at the assembly and went into the shrine.  Taking a candle, I hurried through each of the incense urns placed throughout the interior as fast as I could without extinguishing the candle.  Then I went back outside through the hut, which was connected to the shrine, and hid myself behind the corner closest to where the men stood on the yard.  I could just barely pick out their words.

"Perhaps you remember me."  It was the masked knight's voice.       

            "Ay, I believe I do," Father Micael said.  "You were with those that brought me the boy ten years ago."

            "Twelve years.  He's turned twelve last month, hasn't he?"

            "How, now!" the friar said.  "You seem to know him better than I.  And I was certain he has been forgotten.  Have you some business with him, today?"

            "I do.  I come for him."

            "How, now!" the friar repeated, emphatically.

            "You remember, surely, that this was promised."

            "My recollection fails me on that, I think."

            "Be not obstinate, father."

            "Obstinate, _I!_"  The father's voice rose a little.  "You who comes unannounced for a claim forsaken for a decade call me obstinate?"

            "It was never forsaken—nor forgotten.  This has always been the arrangement," the knight said.  "Your neighbor will confirm it."  

            "It is as he says," the town magistrate's voice followed.  "The provision was thus set, when the boy first arrived here.  He is no longer your charge.  You are released from that duty, father."

            "Never mind my duties; I know them best.  What's to become of him?"

            "To be removed, as the arrangement prescribes," the knight replied.

            "Removed?" Father Micael echoed, with great deliberation.  "Whither?"

            "That is the concern of the master of the arrangement, and I am not he.  It is only relevant for us that the boy's custody under your guardianship terminates this day, and we are to conduct him out of the village."   

            "It is settled, father," the magistrate said, before the old priest could demand to be enlightened further.  

            "It is not settled for me."

            "There is little we can do about it.  It was settled long ago.  It is merely that the time has come."

            Father Micael was quiet then.  "There was always a rumor," he said at length.

            "Father," the magistrate said.

            "I never gave the tale a thought."

            "Pray, father."

            "Even now I cannot believe it.  Assure me there is no truth in it."  

            "We're obliged to comply, father."

            "He is a good lad.  He has a good soul—I know he does."

            "I understand, father."  The magistrate's tone was apologetic.  "Understand, then, this has nothing to do with that."

            "Why won't you tell me what is to become of him?"

            "Because I do not know, father."

            "These men do," Father Micael said contemptuously.  "Yet they will not tell me.  There can be only one reason."

            "They are bound, father—just as we are bound," the magistrate said.  "There is little we can do.  It is best that we not speak more of this.  But the boy must leave today."

            "Will you stand by this obscenity, Joel!"   

            "I do not know that it is an obscenity," the magistrate replied.  "I know that it is for the good of all."

            "I demand to know who stands behind this," Father Micael said.  "I demand to know who takes a diseased interest in a child just because he's got horns sprouting on his head.  And don't think to persuade me that this isn't about the horns.  I know better."

            "This squabble is fruitless, father," the knight said, breaking his silence.  "I am in the authority here, and I must perform my duty.  If you haven't the mind to respect the arrangement, I shall order my men to enforce it regardless." 

            The knight must then have gestured to the others in his company, for immediately there was the sound of the men dismounting from their horses.  My heart beat faster.  Father Micael's voice came again. 

            "Wait, please.  I don't want him handled violently.  Permit us a little time—the child hasn't eaten, and he needs to get his belongings together.  No?  Permit me, at least, to break the tidings to him.  You must appreciate how this will upset him.  You want no trouble from him on the way, yes?  Then let me prepare him for departure.  He will do as I say."  

            "The father is right," followed the magistrate, addressing the knight.  "Let him do as he wishes.  It would be the expedient recourse for all."   

            "Come again at noon," Father Micael said.  "It is all I ask.  Come, the boy needs to be made to understand." 

            "Very well, father," the knight said, after a while.  "We shall be back.  Get him ready by noon."

            No further words were spoken.  I heard neighs, and hooves breaking into trot, and the sound faded away.  I stepped cautiously onto the yard to find Father Micael gazing down the snaky mountain path at the horsemen's retreating figures.  Soon they were lost in the dense green of the forest.  Only then did the friar turn back to the hut.  His eyes immediately caught my form.

            "Have you heard?" he asked.  He did not seem upset, or even surprised.

            "Yes, father."

            "Come, boy.  We must not lose a second."

            The industry exhibited by the old priest in the following half-hour was something frightening—more frightening, it felt to me, than the mysterious exchange I had just listened to, for he went about the procedure with such tightlipped resoluteness.  Running into the hut, he ordered me to saddle and fetch the lone mule we had.  When I had done that, he loaded the animal with two large sacks into which he threw a hastily assembled selection of traveling articles.  They were chiefly foodstuff, and an awful lot of it, too—hefty loaves of bread, mutton chops, apples, more bread, and a water bag.  He had to have loaded a fortnight's worth of provisions for us both, and I think he would have packed more but for the fear that the burden, along with the rider, would be too much for the mule.

            "Get your hood and frock, Ico," he said, fastening a roll of blanket to the saddle.

            "Am I going with those warriors?" I asked timidly.

            "Hood and frock, Ico.  Make haste."

            In a state of rising apprehension I obeyed his command.  When I returned, Father Micael was writing furiously on a parchment, with the saddle and the animal underneath it as the writing board.  Rolling up and banding the parchment, he put the frock around me despite the warmth of the day and pulled the hood down to my eyes.  It was tailored to accommodate the unique shape of my head, and while I looked like a clown in it, it kept the horns out of direct sight.  He inspected me.

            "This will have to suffice," he said, with a sigh.  Then he took me by the shoulders and fixed me with a forceful gaze.  "Listen, boy: you are to remove the hood under no conditions.  Do you understand?  Under no conditions.  You mustn't let anyone see your horns.  Not until you are safe and away."    

            I was now beyond frightened, beyond confused, and downright desperate in my need to know.  "Where are we going, father?"

            "We go nowhere.  _You_ must flee before the soldiers return."

            "Flee, father?" I exclaimed.  "I must?  But why?"

            The fierceness dissipated from Father Micael's expression, and he exhaled a profound sigh that was close to a moan.  When he spoke, his throat issued a deep rumble as it often did under great emotional strains, and the words that came next were utterly confounding, and nothing like what he had ever said to me before.  "Ico, child, forgive me.  Forgive me for not having realized sooner.  I ought to have been keener.  I ought to have foreseen this."

            "Please, sir," I called in sheer panic.  "Why do you say thus?  What is happening, Father Micael?"

            "I do not fathom all of it—indeed I understand but little.  But those men mean to do you harm, Ico.  I am certain of it."

            "But why, father?" I said.

            "Listen carefully, for we have little time.  Twelve years ago," he said, leaning in to address me closely, "armed men, men like those that were just here, arrived from the outside.  In whose service they belonged, I never gathered.  But they easily procured the cooperation of the town elders, and at their bidding the elders charged me with the care of a horned infant who, for a reason untold, was unable to remain in his native parish.  The warriors departed on that same day—leaving you, then only a month old, and the vague promise that my charge would not be permanent.  

"Even before then I had heard tales of children with horns.  Children, Ico—not men, not women, but always children.  And there was the horrid rumor—the absurd hearsay, and the speculations, that only got worse with your coming, the rumor that the poor younglings were never suffered to grow past their youth."  The priest groaned here, while I listened transfixed.  "The stories never ceased to be in my ears, but I could not imagine that they were true.  As the years rolled on and nothing happened, and not a word was heard about the men that had brought you, and not the least of a credible reminder was given to me that a design existed with regard to your future, I leaned towards discounting the speculations entirely.  I came in time to doubt even the men's word that they would be back for you.  May God have mercy on the old fool!"

"What will they do to me?" I asked, dazed.  My mouth was dry, and I had the urge to sit down somewhere, anywhere.

"I do not know, in truth," he said.  "I have suspicions, but there are parts of the tale that I hesitate to dwell on—or to overwhelm you with—even now.  But you must flee."

            "But, where am I to go, father?" I heard myself say.

            "Proceed west, cross the river and request sanctuary in the abbey.  You can hardly hope to outrun them on this feeble beast, but you know these forests better than they.  Take the most unusual route you can think of, even if it means doubling the distance.  Always travel where there are places to hide, and do not stop in a village on the way—don't let anyone even see you, for the soldiers will be making inquiries.  Give the abbot this parchment.  I have explained your situation in it.  Do you understand what I say, Ico?"

            I stared back at my guardian.  Dropping my gaze, I nodded bleakly without a word.  Father Micael, too, said nothing for a moment.  Then he regained his brisk air of authority and bade me to mount the mule.  I had to struggle somewhat to climb on; my limbs had gone weak all of a sudden.  Once I was ready, he grasped my hand in both of his wrinkled ones.

            "The priests at the abbey already know that you're under my care, so you ought to be able to find some sympathetic souls.  God be with you through all, Ico.  Forgive me."

            "Will they not cause you grief for this, father?"

            "I do not think there is need for much worry there.  Their interest is in you, not me.  Now go."

            "Father Micael," I said.

            "Yes, child," he said.

            "When am I to come back?"

            He smiled sadly and squeezed my hand once more.  A moist warmth rose and lingered at the back of my throat, and I swallowed it down. 

            And that was our farewell.  At the time I was too numb in the soul, and he too consumed with urgency, to afford more demonstrative a parting.  For a good hundred yards I kept my eyes trained on our hut and on the diminutive figure of the priest flanked by the leaning gateposts.  The mule walked onward at a slow, almost leisurely, pace.  One would have thought I was setting off for the marketplace, for all the rush I was in.  Then Father Micael waved his arm impatiently in distance, and I hastened the mule into the forest that rose before me, taking an uphill path opposite to the direction in which the knights had left.

            It was little surprise to me that the forest appeared so different that day.  A fugitive of my own imagination in a home place of twelve years, I fancied a thousand foes in the shadows that dappled the woods.  Every breeze through the leaves above whispered an unseen peril.  I quickly developed an unfair irritation at the mule that carried me along, vexed that the clacking noise of its hooves on the rocky soil would betray my presence in the stillness of the forest.  I tried distracting myself by mapping out in my head the route I would take to reach the river, and calculating how long the journey would require.  Crossing the bridge would be unwise, I thought, so I would have to move across the shallow upstream.  I figured it would take me at least a week.

            Within minutes, it all proved to be a futile endeavor.  In retrospect, the knight who spoke with Father Micael had to have anticipated that the friar would seek my escape.  Scarcely half an hour into the forest and occupied with my calculations, I jolted upon hearing a voice call out my name.  I looked about madly, and beheld, not far off to my right, the very knight on his horse.  Gray, looming and still as the trees beside him, he seemed to be an element of the landscape, and utterly unmovable.  In helpless silence I returned his masked gaze.

"Come back, Ico," he said.  Like the first call, the command was hardly the gesture of a frantic pursuer.  It held a poise born of the assurance that the prey was already in the trap.  

I turned, and spurred the mule on to a sprint.  Behind, the knight charged as well.  The steed's neigh pierced the air.  I do not know what was going through my head when I rushed the mule headlong into the web-cluster of bushes and branches.  Perhaps I thought the mule's smaller bulk would somehow make it through.  Thorny twigs brushed by, leaving a wake of sharp stings on my face.  I protected my eyes and got low on the mule's back, and did not see the others spring out of the shadows.  But I heard the sound, and the shouts.  They caught up with me in no time.  There was a brief struggle between the mule and the considerably larger mass of another knight's horse, running side by side.  Something pushed me, or tried to grab me, from the left, and I lost the grip on the rein.  I nearly fell—then a powerful hand grasped me by the collar and hauled me off the saddle as though I were no heavier than a rabbit.  The next instant I found myself secured by an arm under both shoulders, and I was now on top of a different animal altogether.  I was pressed close against my captor, and the pungent odor of perspiration filled my nostrils through the fabric of chains that enclosed his body.  I looked up; the masked knight's eyes bore down on me. 

"Must I restrain you, boy?" he said.  His voice was deceptively low, and his breath very, very close.  "Do you wish to spend the journey in fetter?"

I shook my head.

"Good," he said.  He loosened his grip and seated me in front of him, between the arms that commanded the reins.  The other warriors rode up beside us.  One of them had the mule, its saddle now vacant, in tow.  "Go return to the priest his belongings.  Rejoin us at the creek," the masked knight said to him.  The man departed with his order, and the rest of the company, I among them, moved on in the opposite direction.

Next chapter should be up in a few days or so.  If you leave your e-mail address in a review slot I will notify you of updates.  If you just want to discuss _Ico_ with me and other loyal fans of the game, check out the game's message board on Gamefaqs.com.  Reviews are appreciated.

PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com) 


	2. Entombment

Ico: Voices

By PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com)

Author's note (PLEASE READ!): 

1.  I apologize for my long absence.  I haven't been able to do any writing for months, due to some unkind turns my life has taken recently.  I hope to end that hiatus.  The second chapter is lengthy and a bit slow, but **please be patient with it.**  As with any work of fiction, 'skipping over boring bits' will only serve to make the story harder to appreciate and thus even more boring.

2.  This story—_not_ the game—is set in the medieval period.  It's just to help me deliver some semblance of authenticity.  But if you'd rather imagine that it takes place in a completely imaginary realm, be my guest.  I warn you, however, that the language used in this tale is archaic.  You may encounter some words unfamiliar to you, especially those relating to architecture.  But never fear!  Simply highlight, using the mouse, any word that stumps you and push 'D' on your keyboard.  Definitions of that word will pop up—courtesy of Fanfiction.net.     

3.  My delving into the detail of the castle is derived entirely from the game.  To help you follow Ico's descriptions, I've added the below links for some screenshots of the castle as well as its floor plan.  I did not make these screenshots; they are on a great Ico fan page created by a very talented guy in Hong Kong named Vincent. 

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/map.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/gamescr/ico_castle1.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/gamescr/ico_castle2.jpg

4.  Finally, I'm also adding the links for my hand-drawn Ico fan art, housed on the same page as the links above.  

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/fanart/icofanarts04.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/fanart/icofanarts07.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/fanart/icofanarts05.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/fanart/icofanarts06.jpg

http://www.acad.polyu.edu.hk/~98342482d/ico/gallery/fanart/icofanarts08.jpg

I hope you enjoy this installment.  I most appreciate your reviews, however brief or lengthy they may be.  Should you hate this story, however, only remember to be civil in your posts.

Ico: Voices

By PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com)

Chapter II.  Entombment

In my early years I acquainted myself well to the woods of the vicinity, charting them in my head with the playful and instinctual diligence of an inquisitive whelp.  My knowledge of the region, however, predictably fell within the confine of what a day's exploration on foot could allow.  I had only dim notions, secondhand acquired, of what lay beyond that confine—which was to say that five leagues to the west was the abbey which I had supposedly visited once as an infant, for a belated baptism, in the care of my guardian but whose memory I could lay no claim to, and that at twice the distance to the north was a shore that gave way to an ocean I had never seen.  This ocean, I had been told, resembled a lake so enormous that standing at one edge of it one could not discern the other, and was full to its equally fathomless depth of water that could be drunk by none save the creatures that inhabited it, for it was bitterer than the water Moses by the power of the Almighty cleansed in the deserts.  To this latter, which a blend of childhood fancy and ignorance had elevated to all but mythic rank, my captors now proceeded.  As I recollect our progress unfolded in this manner.

We rode westward and traced one of the many branching brooks in the mountains to the river, which, connecting the most heavily populated areas of the region, served as its principal channel—the same that I was to have crossed in my foiled flight.  There the company turned north and taking a gentle but steady downhill path continued along the riverbank.  An hour of briskly paced ride followed.  To our left the stream was never out of the sight; it was as though we were racing against the river.  When the warriors as one slowed their pace at the appearance of the bridge farther down the stream, I was certain that they meant to cross it.  I was surprised when they marched past the aged structure without a look spared its way.  Instead they approached the clump of ungainly wooden platforms, situated on the bank past the bridge, which the locals used by way of a dock.  I should bring it to light here that lumber furnished our part of the country with an important trade, and that the sight of transports loaded with copious quantities of lumber was frequent on the waterway.  I say transports because these crude albeit immense crafts hardly qualified as true vessels.  In looks they were little more than colossal rafts, often built on the spot, as the need arose, of the very stuff they were intended to bear, to be disassembled and shipped along with the cargo once they reached their destination.  The dock accommodated that day a number of these, all but one of them loaded with the customary cargo.  A man awaited us next to the sole vacant freighter.  It was the smallest of its kind I had ever seen.  This the company proceeded to board, horses and all.  Other tradesmen at the dock stopped their work to observe us.  I should have found the courage to cry out for help, perhaps even a chance to break free and run to them, but that a look of such stony grimness shadowed each of the faces that gazed on.  And grim they remained as the raft was unbound, and released to the flow of the river.

Thus far I had suppressed all impulse to speak anything.  The knights seemed themselves determined to utter no words to me.  They hardly spoke even to one another but rather seemed to know precisely what to carry out and when, so that the masked knight, whom I understood to be in command, hardly ever needed to issue any orders.  Such a daunting silence I dared not breach.  Yet the question of our destination, and of the immediate prospect of my future, was becoming too troubling to withhold; wherefore I timidly and with an air of the greatest deference I could muster under the condition asked one of the warriors, who held a rod to push onward the raft from the shallow waters, where we were headed.  He judged me worthy of one indifferent glance, and no more; he returned to his task.  

So ended the first of my few attempts at communication with those stoic men in the journey.  Insofar as I was an obedient prisoner, they did not lay a rough hand on me, and after that first time of my capture there was no more occasions for violence.  On the raft I was permitted some bodily freedom as well; though, as a safeguard against the possibility of some desperate effort on my part, when the horses were reined together to secure them on board I was leashed with them by a long tether, so that while I could move about I could not escape overboard unless I meant to take the horses with me.  Well! there was nothing for me to do then but to squat next to said horses and keep to myself, watching the solemn warriors navigate their queer choice of transportation, while the countryside slipped lazily but inexorably by until at last all that was familiar had faded behind me.  There wasn't a reason, peculiarly, that I chose to quarter beside the beasts.  It merely seemed a fitting place for me, that day.

We were to spend the rest of the daylight sailing.  And a bizarre sail it was, on a day that abounded in the grotesque.  The river we journeyed on, had we stayed in the most frequented waters, would have taken us directly to the level plains where the shipbuilding yard was to be found.  Not long after we embarked, however, we arrived at a parting point, where an errant branch split from the mother stream and meandered into the hills, taking with it a fair fraction of the water to reach a remote and altogether different shore.  Cutting deep into the mountains, this winding gully made for a substantially more onerous, even dangerous, passageway, and it was my understanding since the earliest days of youth that it had long fallen out of general use for the stated reasons.  Yet the desolation of the route, for which the soldiers now set course of the raft, surpassed my expectation.  It was cause enough for alarm and intrigue when, soon after we had entered the stream, the raft was forced to halt not by some natural impediment but by a mighty chain of iron, which was slung across the width of the river and held at the surface by a succession of poles.  There was no fathoming for me why the water was so blockaded, and after the cool reception of my last query I did not ask about it.  At any rate, men ashore had to be signaled to remove the obstruction and allow the boat's passage.  They that assisted our entry lost little time in restoring the chain to its previous state, once we had cleared the place.

I remember a number of things about the voyage down that nameless channel, which I saw only that once in my life.  Most chiefly I remember that I was frightened half out of my wits—that the green and the blue of the ambience grew muted presently in the austere gloom of the gorge; that the water turned swift and turbulent and furious, not so much that it threatened capsizing but enough to make me doubt that the flimsy craft that carried us down the current should be able to bring us back up the same; that the men were tireless at oars; that the masked knight, who alone did not row with the rest, sat afar to fix his fierce gaze on me; that the horses were restive, and I petted their muzzles in an effort to calm them and myself; that after what seemed an interminable scuffle against an unwilling nature the water gave up its savagery and assumed an abrupt repose; that an absolute quiet stole over us that caused me to look about and discover the surroundings; that the bleak walls in the periphery were the valley, and the hollow, jagged strip of void between them and above was the heavens, which got grayer and grayer, owing this change to no clouds but to a devouring surge of haze that settled over all below.

Onward we floated, into the mist.  It thickened, and the discernible part of the creation rapidly shrank to the extent that the very banks to our sides dissolved into spectral distance, and the current that took us along was my best hope at gauging our direction.  All so dark, all so hushed!  It was no peaceful kind of tranquility but a melancholy that hushed all beginnings of panic into mute dread.  I fancied myself chilly and wrapped my own arms around myself, though it was nearly midday.  Even the beasts next to me were subdued, now; they looked to each other unsurely, much as I was doing at everything in view.  When a league had gone by in such a state, and then the next, without presenting the sight of another vessel, and it became increasingly evident that we constituted the whole of human traffic in those waters, wearied in fearful vigil I drifted into sleep.  

Upon awakening I did not know where I was.  Which of course was to be expected—I was now quite far away from home.  But I mean that I failed to recall for a moment that I was away at all.  Then I became sensible of a foreign smell.  It emanated from a mantle, damp with moisture collected from the air, that was draped over me.  The surface I lay on, while no harder than the bed I was used to at home, was so coarse that in sleep I had scraped my cheek against it.  Hastily I raised myself—took in the vessel and the men and the watery panorama, then a lungful of the novel-tasting wind, and came at that dismaying instant closer to crying than I ever had all day.  My abductors turned and took notice that I was awake.  I cast aside the cloth like a serpent's loathsome peel and crouched away from the men, burying my head in my arms to banish them from sight.  I knew they would leave me alone in my misery; for this at least I felt relieved.  A momentary terror gripped me when one of them stood and walked over to me, but he merely retrieved the mantle from the deck and, rolling it, fastened it on his steed.  It occurred to me that I should in politeness thank him for the kind deed—the blanket, I mean—and so I did, stumblingly.  He looked at me, iron visage impassive as when first forged, and nodded once without a word before he took his seat again at the other side of the raft.  For some reason that modest response at once allayed some of my distress and made me want to cry all the more.

Once my spirit had overcome the worst of its despondence, I got the wood splinters and dirt out of my tunic and face and surveyed where we were.  The river's span had widened considerably while I slept.  I was happy to note that much of the mist had lifted, leaving the nature with a bit more clarity and hues and a good deal more of things worth appreciating.  I thought I had never seen a water take on quite such a pretty, mournful shade of blue—almost azure at first glance, but devoid of all intimation of cheerfulness usually associated with that color, like the eastern sky shortly before the unveiling of the stars.  Perhaps it was in reflection of the heaven, I thought, and lifted my eyes to it.  In the pallor of the waning daylight white birds hovered over us, low and large.  They had feet much like ducks', yet flew with the facility and grace of a hawk.  Occasionally one or two would set down on the ferry to stare at the travelers and especially at the horses before scurrying back onto the air.  I grew quite fascinated with them.  They seemed interested in the crumbs the horses had left uneaten on the deck.  While I watched one such creature brave being trampled under hooves as it went after the crumbs, I asked that same warrior that had nodded at me, what kind of a bird it was.  He looked at the bird I pointed to, and then looked longer at me, ponderingly.  I got fitful and started to regret my question.

"It is a seagull," he replied.

"Ah! so that's a seagull.  I've never seen one, until today," I said with feelings, as though I had been told that it was the celebrated albatross.  He resumed silence, and we spoke no more.  Still I was grateful to him for speaking with me.  I thought perhaps I should thank him for that, too, but then thought better of it. 

We sailed on and at twilight came to the end of the route.  But the river did not terminate there.  It was cut off once again by a barrier, a weed-covered lattice that stretched from one riverbank to the other like a fishnet for boats and rendered passage impossible.  There was no sign, as far as I could see, that the obstruction was movable as the other barrier had been.  The water was closed off this time for good.  We alighted and entered the forest on horseback, climbing the gorge we had been navigating along.  It was one of those moonless evenings.  The darkness of the forest was already stifling, and it only got worse as the day sank deeper into the night.  It was a wonder that the men knew where they trod at all.  Yet the masked knight, with whom I rode again, was undeterred, leading ahead with quick steps and surefooted confidence.  Our journey was likely near its conclusion, I thought, for if it were not, the men should by now need a suitable place to camp for the night.  My speculation proved to be correct.  We had hardly been riding for an hour when a flicker of crimson in the distance broke through the uninterrupted arrangement of pitchy somberness.  We drew near, and the glimmer brightened, illuminating the tenuous outlines of the undergrowth and the trunks ahead.  I stared at it spellbound, a maelstrom of thoughts and fears raging within; I was finally _here!_   What terrible, startling destination lay before me?

A startlingly puny one, as it turned out.  What greeted us beyond the woods was a mount in shed of the plainest description, scarcely as large and every bit as humble as Father Micael's own domicile.  It stood—nay, leaned against a tall boulder, which seemed to be its chief support, so that its removal would have brought the rickety ensemble of planks and stones to collapse like a cripple robbed of his prop.  The lone window was open and lit, and the trail of smoke from the chimney was thin, swallowed up by the black night sky.  The sturdiest feature of that unassuming abode was the fence that enclosed it, and this unlike the rest was wholly of wrought metal.  Halting the company outside the fence, the masked knight called out loud.  There were creaks from within, and the sound of bolts being lifted, and out came a short stooping figure of a man through the door.  He wore a great cap of animal skin on his head and the light from the house on his back like a halo, and his own face was in shadow.  It was not until he faced the riders on the other side of the fence that I saw he was of great age, with snowy profusion of beard that clung to his jaw in such an unruly fashion that one would have thought he had just crawled through a heap of cobweb.  He raised a withered hand.

            "Have you been well?" said the masked knight.

            "I'm the same, always," replied the newest stranger.  Though his words addressed the knight, his eyes were intent on me.  "Bring another one, do you?" said he.

            "Allow us in.  We shall stay the night."

            "A fine time of the day you've chosen to come," the old man said gruffly, dragging open the gate.  "I have just smothered the fire.  I shall have to set it going again." 

            "Be not concerned with us," the knight said as the company rode into the yard.  He dismounted and bade me to do the same, while the old man bolted the entrance.  "We will be outside.  Only tend to the boy."

            The old man considered me again, with a glare that seemed to have been sculpted into the lined mold of his face.  He didn't look quite so small anymore, now that we stood upon the same ground.  "Has he eaten?" he asked the knight.

            "Not all day.  See to it, if you please."

            "Well, then.  Come in, boy," the old man said, starting back towards the hut.  Hesitantly I looked to the masked knight.  But he had already left my side to join the other men, who were preparing to set up a camp in the enclosed yard.  I was alone.  Then the old man's impatient call from the doorstep jolted me, and I ran in after him.

            *    *    *    *    *    *    *

            "Think no foolish thoughts there, now," the old man said.

            Startled somewhat, I turned from the gap of the door through which I had been peeking out to the yard.  The knights sat in rest outside, gathered by a small fire.  

"Sir?" I said.

            He waved the ladle in his hand.  "There's a wall of boulder on one side of this house, and those men on the other.  They may have left you to me for the night, but they've no mind to let you fly, you see."  

            Thus concluding his first speech to me since I had entered the lodge, the old man returned to the hearth, where broth was beginning to boil.  I looked at the knights once more.  They had freed themselves of much of their armaments, though it was still hard to discern their faces in the darkness and the liquid dazzle of the fire.  The sight of their bare heads, with short cropped hair, somehow struck me as inordinately curious.  I closed the door.  

            "How does prune sound to you?" the old man said, retrieving a sack that hung on the wall to set it down on the table.  I told him it sounded fine.  I had not thought of food since morning, but now, with the fetching smell of the broth filling the house, hunger was prevailing over the want of appetite.  "Come to the table, boy.  I've got venison, and loaves with honey.  Do you want anything else?  Shall I ask the men outside for what they've brought with them?  They ought to have some cheese, and mayhap milk even.  I ran clean out of cheese long ago, and I haven't tasted milk these few years." 

"Oh! you don't have to do that, on my account," I said, alarmed a little by the sudden talkativeness in the old man, as I took a seat.

            "It's no trouble, laddy.  As it happens it's something of a duty that I give you a good meal tonight.  Shall I ask them, then?"

            "No, no, that's quite all right," I said, hastily.  "They might not look kindly on it."

            At this reply, he guffawed.  A monstrous laughter, I thought.  I don't know why truthfully; there wasn't anything menacing in the sound.  I think it was simply the man.  There was something about him that was quite soundly and dreadfully divorced from the demeanor of common men and women I had known; though I was young, I felt this.

"Afraid of the ruffians, are you?  Well, well!  I suppose you've reason enough to be afraid.  Wait here, boy.  I'll go and see what they have to share with us."  And he was about to exit the house.

            "Please don't, sir," I said.  "Really, I will be quite full with these.  Unless—unless, of course, you want something for yourself."

            "Well, look here," he said, stopping.  "The young one knows the form, and he's got manners.  Yet he's dressed like a peasant boy.  I'd almost have thought he was brought up in a church."

            "At a shrine, sir," I said.

            "A shrine, eh?"

            "Under Father Micael," I added.

            "Ah.  Christened?"

            It was after some moments that I realized he had asked my name.  "Ico, sir.  But, not christened."

            "Not christened, eh?"

            "No, sir.  I mean, I was—but I was named that before then, I think."

            "Ah.  Give that bowl here," he said, picking up the ladle again.  When I did so, he poured out a generous helping and gave it back to me.  "Eat.  There's plenty, so have as much as you like."

            "Will you not eat, sir?" 

            "I supped earlier," he said, and promptly sat across from me.

            "Oh…"  I looked to him, unsure.

            "Well?  Go on—eat," said he, gesturing to the plates encouragingly.

            It has to be one of the most uncomfortable circumstances in a child's life, to eat at a stranger's table, with the said stranger and no other in attendance, and have that same stranger do nothing but stare at him through the entire meal.  This was exactly what the old man did, from the moment he sat himself at the table.  He had to urge me two or three times more to get me going, and as I whisperingly stuttered over grace, and proceeded with equal discomfiture to help myself, his interest in me did not seem to waver.  Hungry as I was, it took me in my nervousness no small effort to force the food down the throat.  The old man said nothing in his watch.  I thought I could stand it no more.

            "Please pardon me, sir, but," I began, mouthing the syllables around bits of sour prune.

            "No need to be formal, boy," the old man said.  "Formality has been to me a useless thing many a year now.  I left all that behind, long before you were born."

            "May I ask your name, then?"

            "I left that behind, too," he said.  "One doesn't need a name, you see, when he is always quite by himself.  So I will be until the day I depart for the next world."

            "Is that true?" I exclaimed, a good deal amazed.  "That is most wondrous!  But suppose you get lonely?"

            "I am past thinking about it."  He gestured to the food again.  "The broth will get cold, boy."

            Thoughtfully, I resumed eating.  It seemed an easier task, now that we were in conversation.  I looked up from the bowl again to find the old man's eyes unmoved from me.  "But the knights outside… they know you.  And I—I am here also.  What do people call you when they see you, or talk to you?"

            "They needn't call," replied he.  "All who come here do so but for one reason, and they know what they are to do.  And those—rarely, this happens—who don't, I don't trouble myself with.  Another will deal with them."

            "Oh," I said, not understanding a bit.

            "But where my duties are concerned—which in the end is all that is of any consequences to me—I am sometimes called the gatekeeper."

            "A gatekeeper?" I echoed.  "But where is the gate that… that you must keep?"

            The old man grinned and gathered his hands together on the table.  "Sometimes the keeper watches the gate in proximity.  Other times, he keeps post at a distance.  I am myself never allowed inside the gate."

            "That should be a very difficult thing to do!" I cried.  "I mean—when _I_ am sometimes charged to watch over the shrine, I must keep close to it, and even sleep in it if it is at night, or I shall not be able to keep a good watch at all."

            "It's less difficult than it ought to be," he said.  "That that I watch stands in vigil over itself, you see."

            Seeing that my comprehension improved little, but that I continued to be impressed by his mystical accounts, the old man again let out a cackle that seemed half-demented to me.  Looking back, I do believe that there was a kind of dementia involved—the dementia that seizes a soul doomed to solitude.  "Enough of that, boy.  Enough of that.  You will learn it yourself afore long.  For now, eat."  

            So I returned to my meal obediently.  Before long, however, I was compelled—emboldened, you might say, for the gatekeeper for all his merry strangeness seemed conversational, and willing to be informative in his own way—to probe my host further.  He had not once paused his rapt inspection of me.

            "The knights outside, sir," I began cautiously while I chewed.  "Do you know them well?"

            "The tall one I've met a few times.  The rest, I am not certain—how could I tell, I mean, with those iron caps of theirs?"

            "But they come here often?" I asked, heartened that he did not seem offended by the prying.

            "They or others, once every few moons, to bring me provisions—or children, which is a much more infrequent thing, thanks be to the Lord."

            I stopped the spoon on its way to the mouth.  Father Micael's words rose unbidden in my mind, and at their heel the gatekeeper's first remarks to the masked knight.  

_Bring another one, do you?_  

I turned to him.  His mouth was set in a displeased frown, as though—as though in annoyance.  But not at me, I thought.

            "They brought other children here," I cried.  "Others—like me.  With horns.  You've seen others like me, sir?"

            "Now, now, boy—calm yourself," the gatekeeper said.  

            I would not calm.  I was terrified again.  Rising from the chair, I clutched the spoon until my fingers ached.  "What is to become of me?" 

            "I do not know.  I do not know that the men out on the yard know.  But I said before, child, that you will learn soon enough.  You may even learn more than any of us.  We're nothing, lad.  Nothing.  We're all duty-bound."

            For the first time, there was the tiniest shadow of distress on his old face, a look almost pleading.  I thought of bolting for an instant.  Then I thought of the men with swords outside the door, and sank back onto the chair.

            "Why do they do this?" I asked, eyes downcast—as though searching for the Hell beneath where I seemed bound.

            "Because they were commanded by their lord," came the old man's voice.

            "Who is their lord?"                  

            "I do not know, child."

            "Why does their master want this done of me?" asked I again.

            "Because he was commanded by my lord."

            "Who is your lord?"

            "I do not know, child."

            I looked up.  A wry grin, unhappy but mischievous, curled his lips.  "I thought lords have names," I murmured, thinking of my own lack of surname.  "Great names."

            "They have secrets," he replied.  "There is the Lord of the Heaven, you see—and then there is a horde of smaller lords crawling about below.  Smaller and meaner.  So their secrets naturally aren't as grand as His, but theirs have got much more cunning."  His grin quickly widened, as if he found something terribly amusing—mad, I could not help thinking.  "Our only comfort, boy—yours and mine—is that _His_ secret," and as he said this, he pointed upwards, growing merrier still, "will in the end have the surprise on all of us… us and them alike."

            "I do not understand, sir," I said weakly.

            "You don't, eh?  That's to be expected; it's quite all right.  But, while we are talking about things beyond one's wit, let me tell you a story, for I must tell it to all my young brethren who pass under my roof.

            "Long ago, an eagle lived in a great forest.  None in the forest was fiercer than the eagle.  It flew higher than anyone, saw farther than anyone, and was mightier than anyone.  None escaped its eyes, its claws.  It ruled supreme over all beasts in the forest for many years.  But the eagle grew old, and with age came frailty it had not known before.  At last the bird's old wings could no longer keep hold over the vastness of the territory, and it began to shrink.  Then the eagle said to itself, 'Before my domain dwindles to nothing, I shall build myself a dwelling to enclose a portion of the forest, that I will always reign in it.'  So the eagle ordered its creaturely subjects to erect an immense coop that would forever claim for its proprietor a piece of the heaven and the earth.  The eagle entered it, bolted shut the door, and declared itself the monarch of the coop.  After that day the great bird never flew outside the cage of his own making.  

            "But the bird needed to subsist like any other creature.  Therefore it had its minions bring into the coop, from time to time, sustenance worthy of a king.  Time flew, and the great bird all but faded from the thoughts of others.  Yet none dared imagine that he was dead—for he was a terrible, terrible beast, and the coop stood a domineering mark of his presence.  And the fear of the secluded monarch was great enough to cast his shadow over every bit of his former realm, the same as if he had never retired from that realm.  In this way the shrewd bird assured himself of a rule everlasting.   

            "That is the tale.  Finish your meal in peace, child.  I'll go and prepare your bed for the night.  I imagine the men will want to take leave early in the morning, so you'd best sleep soon.  Don't worry yourself excessively.  Your exile will end quickly, I promise you.  Mine, I fancy, has some years yet left of it.  Let us speak no more of this."

            I talked to the old man some more that night, but he was careful to avoid all subjects related to my circumstances.  When we slept, he insisted on giving up his own bed for me despite my protest.  He opted to sleep wrapped in a great fur on the floor, positioning his bedding—deliberately, I suspected—just in front of the door.  On that door I fixed my eyes for the longest time after the lamp was extinguished, while I lay on the bed thinking of home and the knights and the old man and his strange story.  Until the very moment I fell asleep, the thin gap under the door glowed with the crimson flicker of the knights' fire outside.

            *    *    *    *    *    *    *

            I was the last to rise in the morning, though the hour was still early.  It was the gatekeeper's voice that roused me.  He sounded hoarse and brusque, though he tried to be quiet.  

            "So you've come sniffing already, eh?  Well, damn you for it.  Damn you twice."  

His words were accompanied by the familiar deliberate beat of a knife against the cutting-board.  For a full minute the chopping continued in silence, until the old man's annoyed voice came again sharply.

            "For your accursed curiosity, quite healthy and sound.  Now get out."

            The chopping was turning erratic, and needlessly vigorous.  While I, still in bed, listened in vain for some sign of the personage with whom the gatekeeper was evidently conversing, he again spoke, exasperated: "Well, how do you fancy I should know, when I met the lad only last evening?  Go on!  You shall not touch him in my house."

I was now completely awake.  I rose and made furtive steps to the opposite corner of the house, where a low wall of the scullery was blocking the gatekeeper and his companion from my view.  I found him with his back towards me, chopping a steaming piece of meat in front of him, and addressing a dark corner.  

He ceased his hand.  "Why do you torment me, fiend?" he growled.  "Shoo, now!  Off you go, back where you belong!  Shall you not see him soon enough?"

Granted, it was rather dark in the house, for the day had not yet cast off its night shade.  But there was no mistaking what I saw.  At the old man's angry dismissal, a clump of pitchy black shadow—I had not even noticed its presence until just then, so shapeless was it—, crouching  at that very corner of the scullery, snuffed itself out like a black flame that had been doused with water!

I blinked and rubbed my eyes.  The gatekeeper resumed his chore.  I must then have betrayed myself somehow, for he glanced behind him.  We were both equally startled, I think.  He stared at me wide-eyed for a second, and then started briskly across the room for—of all things in the world—his head-cap that lay on the table.  Grabbing it, he donned it without a word—which, of course, only attracted my eyes to his head, and to the thing that he had meant to cover, before he could cover it.  And I at once realized the cause of his peculiar behavior.  There, pushing through the unkempt white mass of his hair, was a gray stump no bigger in length than a child's thumb.  

I stood frozen, my jaw no doubt hanging down to my collarbones.      

"The men wish to leave immediately," the gatekeeper said as he returned to the food he had been preparing.  He did not meet my eyes.  All merriment was gone from his demeanor.  "I thought I would feed you breakfast before you went, but I shall have to wrap it for you.  They wait outside even now."

And that was all he would say.

I stepped outside to find the knights ready by their horses, back in full armor.  The masked knight wordlessly raised his hand, gesturing me to come and mount his horse.  I moved to abide but was momentarily detained by the gatekeeper's hand.  The elder pushed a warm knapsack into my arms.

            "This is for you.  Farewell, young Ico," he said.  His hands remained on my own.

            "Sir…" I began, suddenly trembling.  "Do you have…  I mean, on your head—"

            "I once did," he said, completing my question.  "I destroyed them in the hope of eluding my fate.  _This_… was my punishment."

            I was too afraid to ask him what that fate was.  Instead I found myself saying: "Sir, how long have you lived here, all by yourself?"  

            Ah, how very much like Father Micael he looked, as that resigned smile spread across his ancient face!  

            "Since my twelfth birthday.  Defy not thy destiny, brethren.  To do so is consignment to misery—misery like mine.  Farewell, Ico," said he again, returning momentarily to that vacuous grin of his.  "May the Judge of All see you through your journey.  It is nearly over.  Be brave, lad!"

            I could not hold back one final question for this man, who had told me so much and yet so little in our brief acquaintance.  "But where am I journeying to?"

            "Why, child, do you not see that over there?" said he, pointing behind me with a motion of his bearded chin.

            I espied the northern sky as prompted.  And got the biggest surprise of my life.  To be strict, stranger things were yet to come, and more terrible, too—yet, in the sheer impact of the thing, none would exceed that arresting, speechless moment.

Rising in far distance above the uneven, elevated horizon of treetops were gray towers.  Their lofty mass contended with the peaks next to them, a lone anomaly amid many leagues of otherwise unchallenged wilderness.

            A fortress.

            I gawked.  How could I have missed it the night before?  It had to have been lost in the darkness of the night.  Still how could I…?  How could I…?

            I whirled to face the gatekeeper.  "Is that…?" I said, pointing like a fool at the distant structure, seeking—I don't know why—confirmation.  "Sir, is that—" 

"The coop, my boy," replied the gatekeeper.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

The ride that morning was brief, though I generally spent the hour in a state of quiet hysteria.  During the whole of it, I had my eyes fixed on the gray shadow ahead, which was the guide for our march.  Sometimes it disappeared from view when the forest path dipped low, but invariably it reappeared before long, each time looming bigger than before, and clearer, as the sun dispelled more of dawn.  That it was absolutely the most immense thing I had ever seen was apparent even from that distance.  I clutched the knapsack to my heart, which pounded with that bleak clobbering beat that seems to reverberate through one's entire body in a time of keen anxiety.  My back grew tired and stiff, for on the horse I had no support but the masked knight's metal-wrapped bulk against my backside, and I kept crouching forward, not liking the feel of the chain-mail.

At last we emerged from the forest, where I could see an uphill path clear of vegetation terminate at the peak, beyond which were the towers.  The body of the castle, now sandy-bright in the morning sun, revealed itself bit by bit as we climbed the hill.  It was obvious that the part of the castle visible over the treetops was for all its size only the uppermost level of the structure.  The thought fueled my curiosity as to the fortress' true dimension.  

When we reached the peak—well, there I was rendered speechless again.  I had fully expected to find the fortress sitting behind the hill.  And it did; but that wasn't all.  We were greeted by a handsome ivy-covered colonnade, which was half fallen from age and looked for all the world like a roofless portico.  But instead of granting entry as a portico should, this one marked the endpoint of the path—and, not only that, it marked the endpoint of the _land_ as well; we were all but perched at the edge of a bluff that plunged to a shore far, far below. 

We were—I could see now, finally—at the innermost spot of a crescent bay.  For the first time in my life, an ocean infinite and magnificent stretched before me—a sublimely silken field of unending blue.  Its tranquil majesty was marred only by the white foams dancing savagely over the rocky shore, the weather-beaten border of the watery world.  It was a humbling sight.  It was marvelous beyond what I had ever dreamed.

And the castle?  Why, there it was—soaring straight out of the waters, practically at a stone's throw from the cliff!

As the men dismounted, I remained spellbound.  When I came halfway back to senses, the knights were tying the horses to the marble posts.  This was the end.  The journey was over.  But, I asked myself, how were we to enter the castle?  For there wasn't so much as a string that connected the castle to the land.  It was inaccessible as the heaven itself.

"See about the boat."  

It was the masked captain who spoke.  One of the men immediately departed on foot.  Until he returned, the rest of us took a rest in the shade of the colonnade.  The captain ordered—he made it plain that it was an order, not a suggestion—me to eat the victual which the old gatekeeper had given me.  The warrior then displayed a most curious consideration by handing me an urn full of cider to accompany the breakfast.  The drink was sour and dull, and it left an odd taste in my mouth.  I should have drunk just enough to ease thirst but that the same who had given me that drink prompted me to finish the bottle entire.  While eating I scrutinized the castle in helpless enthrallment.  Since this was the only time I was able to observe the edifice from the land, let me to provide here a brief impression of it before I move on.

Any honest description of that castle must abound in superlatives.  To begin with, its height was utterly impossible.  The sea was a long way down from where the riders rested, and yet the castle stood proud and level with us.  No, taller even; taller by _far_.

A second look at the fortress, once the initial jolt of the spectacle had subsided, revealed features that I had overlooked.  The castle did not jut out of the sea itself, as I first had fancied, but sat instead upon an island of awesome steepness.  Nor was the castle a single structure, but rather a compound consisting of the main body flanked on both sides by identical wings—and each had its own foundation in the form of an island, so that there were in total three isles, all equal in height and arranged in an unnatural symmetry.  The isles, despite their craggy appearances, were smooth and even across the tops, like the bases of some great trees that had been sawed down.  Furthermore, I could detect nary a patch of top soil that was left bare; all available surfaces of the islands were built on, thus creating an effect whereby it was difficult to distinguish at a glance where the islands ended and the citadel began.

Imagine, now, the superhuman effort it would take to erect a castle atop islands which, being barely large enough to accommodate the edifice, could not possibly have supplied the needed quantity of stone.  And this at such a dizzying height above the water!  It was just preposterous; one simply could not do it.  The fortress indeed seemed a natural extension of the islands, as though, instead of being assembled brick by brick, it were carved directly out of the foundation much as a statue is cut from a single slab of marble.  

I was surprised to see, at the center of the castle, a stately gate facing us.  What was more, the gate was flung wide open so that the green courtyard inside was in plain view.  But unless one were to tread five hundred cubits of empty air, the inviting gate was perfectly useless.  I began to understand what the gatekeeper had meant by his charge standing in vigil over itself.  The ocean was the castle's moat—and the plunging height its second, invisible wall of fortification.  It was a perfect bastion.  

Presently the man who had left on an errand returned and announced that the boat was ready.  Leaving the horses bound on high ground with one of the men, the rest of the company descended to the shore by a narrow foot passage along the wall of the precipice.  We boarded a small boat and set out for the citadel.  

If the castle had looked towering from atop the cliff that was now behind us, it was absolutely monstrous from the sea.  And it only got bigger as we got closer to it.  The islands quickly took up my vision, and I had to strain my neck to glimpse the castle above.  The sight was so overwhelming that frankly I was more captivated than terrified—which helped the situation somewhat, for I had known for some time already that I would not live.       

As we neared the central isle, which was the largest of the lot, I thought I heard a new sound mixed with the enchanting roar of breaking waves: a low, brooding and measured _grating_, like the sound of a dozen mills turning in tandem.  The sound grew the loudest when we were passing by the isle and was soon lost as we moved away.  About that time I began to wonder where we would disembark, for it seemed clearly suicidal to approach any those megaliths on a boat so small; it would go to pieces like an egg upon a rock.  

Rounding the central isle, however, we came upon a _fourth_ and final isle.  Being the smallest member of the archipelago, it had been obscured from the shore by its bulkier siblings.  Small size notwithstanding, the isle seemed the most striking of them all.  In breadth it was no match for the others.  But it was fully as tall—and a single sky-piercing tower capped it, doubling its height.  From distance, it would have seemed less an island and more a massive pillar of stone.  It became evident that the boat was bound there.  As the boat neared it, I looked for a passageway along the cliff that would take us to the top of the island, but to no avail.  Then the men rowed the boat halfway round the island and brought us to the side of the isle that faced the ocean—and I saw that the island gaped inward at the base like the hollow of an old tree.  The cavern's entrance was guarded by two even rows of square granite columns that evidently were rooted in the seabed itself.  Like the colonnade ashore, these two showed signs of ruin.  Several lacked capitals, and one in particular was leaning precariously, which gave me no little scare as the boat passed between the columns for fear that it would collapse upon us.

Forward, ever forward, into that darkness!  The lattice barring the cavern surrendered to the black depth of the sea, and the island received us into its bowel.  The waves' ambient wail was hushed all in a moment.  The air put on a sudden moist chill.  We were inside the isle.

At this time I became aware of a dizziness—a growing faintness of the attentive spirit.  Was it the effect of the spectacles, of too much thrill and depression at once of the soul?  But I felt weak as an infant, and gripped the edge of the boat to support myself.  The masked knight's cold hand was steady upon my shoulder.  The boat halted at the dock—a pitiful wooden fixture, nestled awkwardly among strewn ruins of granite; I couldn't suppress the thought that different hands were involved in their respective construction.  

The dizziness worsened quickly.  I was falling into a lethargy that began at the temples and flowed down to the limbs.  When I climbed out of the boat after the men, and the legs that touched upon the soil threatened to fold, and the masked knight deftly caught me under one arm without the least surprise as if he had expected this sudden infirmity in me, I suspected at last that an influence beyond mere overtaxing of the spirit was at work in me.  The enlightenment did me little good.  The masked knight prompted me onward, his hand closed round my arm as securely as any manacle, and I walked as guided in a hazy state of mind.  A mere few steps afterwards, I saw that I no longer stood in the rugged confine of the cavern.

The space in which I found myself—how shall I describe it?  It was like the interior of a very great tower.  In itself this should have been little surprise, after the wonders I had already witnessed.  No, the wonder of it would not make itself apparent until one reflected upon the fact that this great vertical duct traversed through the heart of the isle—that the isle had been hollowed out along its height like an upstanding pipe, and I now stood at the bottom of it.  A well—that was precisely what it felt like.  I was at the bottom of a dry well that had to have been dug by some race of titans many dozen times bigger than men.  

Except one detail…  At the very center of the vault, another, slimmer column stood.  At its base was a pair of strangest-looking statues I had ever seen—clearly fashioned after human likeness, but too blocky to pass for sculptures, like some pagan idols.  Two perfectly identical specimens stood pressed together side by side.

I was by then all but asleep on my feet, like one drunk.  Dreamily I matched gaze with the stony, dull eyes of the statues, lulled into dumb fascination, and unaware that I stood alone again.

A movement in the periphery caught my attention.  One of the men walked through the entrance to rejoin the group.  I had not noticed him leave.  And he held in his hand—a sword, in a dark scabbard.  _That_ brought me up, sharply.  The men had never displayed their weapons.

The knight pushed the sword towards his captain.  But the captain turned away from the proffered weapon, and in my near-delirious state I fancied I read a frown of revulsion behind his mask as plainly as if the mask were not there.  It was like he was afraid to bear the _touch_ of the sword.  Instead he pointed a gloved hand at _me_.  The sword bearer—I recall he had an unusually crimson mail on—turned, and walked my way.  I watched his advancement, immobile; I can't say whether it was the effect of whatever drug I had been given or sheer terror that bound my feet where they were.  But the man passed me by, and instead faced the idol-like statues.  He raised the sword and unsheathed it—not all the way, but just enough for me to glimpse the naked metal therein.  How it glowed!  A glow most eerie and amazing, in that dark chamber that hadn't so much as a lit candle for lighting.  But that lingered not on my mind for long.  The blade had not been bared for a second, when there resounded throughout the vault an unearthly groan that set my hair on ends.  Startled, I jumped at the source of the noise: _the_ _statues!_  Their eyes, no longer dull, gleamed livid white.  In horror I watched them shake violently, furiously.  Then with a great, shuddery gnashing against the stone floor, the statues parted, revealing, where they used to stand but a moment ago, a recess within the column!

Growing rapidly fainter in the head all the while, I stared at the newly created doorway, until the masked knight's hand guided me once again.  

From there only the blurriest retention of events remains in my memory.  I recall a series of images, the order of which I can only through surmises vouch.  

A curious sensation of the floor rising, like riding upon a crane platform.  The knight's cautious wielding of the sword again—the flash, and the same gnashing of stones once more. Then we were stepping out—I was all but being carried by that point—into a gray, dimly lit chamber full of dust.  And then the _faces_, massive and many and surrounding, that gazed at me from all directions, dismal and tight-lipped… all except one of them, whose jaw parted to expose the blackness within.  Being lifted and deposited in that jaw.  A brief, final flash of the morbid ironclad heads, my captors, looking in grimly from outside.

"Do not be angry with us…"

The jaw closed over me, commending me to the dark.


End file.
